The Federal Court has ordered the husband-and-wife operators be fined for underpayment to migrant workers
Two Vietnamese eateries in Adelaide have been ordered to pay $802,000 in court penalties for underpaying migrant workers, the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) says.
The Federal Court has ordered Mr Viet Quoc Mai (Mr Mai) to back-pay $407,546 owed to 36 workers he underpaid as part of the operation of the ‘Mr Viet’ restaurant in Adelaide’s Rundle Mall, in South Australia, and food court outlet in the city’s Chinatown Precinct.
The imposed payment includes interest and superannuation.
In addition, a $260,000 penalty has been enforced against Mr Mai as well as a $130,000 penalty against his wife, Ms Huong Le, for her involvement in the contraventions, the FWO said in a statement.
FWO said the penalties were imposed for a number of contraventions, which include giving false records to Fair Work inspectors; underpaying or not paying minimum rates to staff; and employees being unreasonably required to spend their own money. The FWO said in some cases workers were forced to buy their bosses’ bubble tea.
The Court found underpaid workers were mostly international Vietnamese students aged under 25 who were paid as little as $15 an hour when they were employed between January 2018 and September 2021. Five of the workers were aged between 18 to 20 at the time.
The workers were employed on a casual basis – to work in the kitchen, bar and restaurant – and were underpaid between $75 and $58,592.
In its statement, the FWO said Mr Mai and Ms Le had a “strike board system” to punish employees when they made a mistake whilst working. After six strikes, workers were made to go and buy food and beverages for the owners and/or other people working at the time.
In one example in October 2020, an was employee sent to buy bubble teas for Ms Le and other employees in the restaurant that Saturday and the following Monday. In February 2021, an employee was made to transfer more than $50 to Ms Le’s personal account for the purchase of the teas. The court ruled this was unreasonable in the circumstances.
The FWO said Mr Mai also took money out of his employees’ pay packets for claims they incorrectly charged a customer, and for failing to properly close a refrigerator door. "The court found that those deductions were not authorised and therefore contravened the law," the FWO said.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said the contraventions were disgraceful.
“These substantial penalties highlight that exploiting vulnerable migrant workers is particularly reprehensible conduct that will not be tolerated in Australia,” Ms Booth said.
“If you exploit your workers you will be found out and called out. The respondents have been left with court orders to pay more than $800,000 because of their unlawful conduct," she said.
The underpayments were discovered when auditing eateries in Adelaide as part of surprise inspections in 2021, in which more than 300 underpaid workers had their wages recovered during the operation.
